About Cadwalader

At Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, we put over 225 years of legal experience and innovation to work for you today. As one of the world's leading advisors to corporations and financial institutions, we have earned a reputation for crafting innovative business and financial solutions and developing precedent-setting legal strategies to achieve our clients' goals. Find out what makes us different.

We stand out from our competition because we help you stand out from yours.

We are in the business of delivering results so the truest measure of our success is the success of our clients. By maintaining this focus, we help them to create and launch groundbreaking products, services, concepts and deals and to protect their interests.

Practice

With more than 350 attorneys in offices around the world, clients come to Cadwalader for our ability to handle groundbreaking transactions, complex litigation and novel issues arising in emerging areas of law. Our legacy of crafting innovative business and financial solutions continues today with our work on the most important transactions, disputes, and investigations.

News

Cadwalader attorneys are often called upon to comment on business, financial, political and legal developments around the world as well as on the implications of big deals, noteworthy cases, community news, and proposed legislation.

Breaking new ground.

From commenting on pressing legal and policy issues to explaining the implications of big deals and important court decision for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, as well as a host of other leading news outlets, trade publications, and wire services our attorneys are sought out for their views and perspectives.

Resources

Cadwalader regularly publishes informative and educational materials, including newsletters and news alerts on a range of topics. Our portfolio also includes articles, industry programs, seminars, conferences, and videos.

From explanatory memoranda to pinpointed analysis, we provide our clients and friends with practical guidance in a variety of formats to help them to understand complex issues and make informed decisions about their businesses.

Careers

Cadwalader is a community of talented and driven individuals committed to excellence and innovation. Across departments, offices and borders, we share the common goal of providing world-class client service through the development of a culture that fosters diversity, collaboration and professional growth.

Small Credit Rating Agencies Cry Foul Over EU Directive

May 23, 2014

“We have seen the obligation to document the consideration of a smaller CRA reflected in offering memorandum, board resolutions or underlying deal documents. The obligation is to consider a smaller agency, but I think that there are a number of factors that go into that, including the fact that the CRA has to be capable of giving the rating. Whilst a smaller CRA may well be capable, the market for certain structured finance instruments is sufficiently developed and established that investors and issuers tend to gravitate towards tried and tested methodologies and the larger credit rating agencies.”

- Cadwalader partner Stephen Day commenting to IFLR about claims made by smaller credit rating agencies that banks are ignoring a key part of the European Union’s CRA3 regulations, aimed at decreasing an over-reliance on the larger rating agencies. Day refutes that banks are not taking the rule seriously, and instead credits the continued dominance of the big three agencies to simple market factors – that they are simply more capable of providing what is needed.